() Department of Homeland Security officials believe there are more than 600,000 migrants with criminal convictions and charges living in the United States while remaining on the list of those Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are searching for.
As ICE continues to seek to arrest and detain these immigrants who entered the country illegally, a nearly 20-year U.S. Border Patrol agent is making it his mission to find them on his own.
Shane Fernandez works along the U.S.-Mexico border in El Centro, California, which is located just west of the Arizona state line and 113 miles east of San Diego. Fernandez wants to do more than apprehend those who are attempting to cross into the United States illegally.
He wants to track down those who have entered the country illegally over the past four years and who have managed to remain out of federal custody.
A Border Patrol agent with a hashtag
Over the past 3 1/2 years, Fernandez has either captured or been responsible for the capture of 91 people. Each of his captures is displayed on a poster board with photos of those who have landed in federal custody thanks to Fernandez’s efforts. His work has garnered its own hashtag, “#Shane’d.”
For Fernandez, the hashtag is a unique honor, but it represents so much more.
“Shane’d means that we did our job, we found them, we did our investigation, we worked in collaboration with other law enforcement agencies, and we all worked together,” Fernandez told . “That’s really important to remember we all worked together to accomplish a great thing, which is to get this arrest and get this criminal off the street.”
Not everyone that Fernandez seeks to capture has direct ties to the El Centro Sector. However, he sees his jurisdiction as the microcosm of what is happening with ICE’s efforts to take migrant criminals into federal custody across the United States.
Everyone he seeks to capture is in the United States illegally and was either released by immigration officials or a judge and remains here despite giving previous orders to leave. Others are “gotaways,” the migrants who entered between ports of entry and have managed to elude federal immigration agents.
“I don’t see this as … I should stay in my lane,” he said. “I see this more as a national security threat, and I take it very seriously.”
Shane Fernandez on a personal mission
Fernandez’s work has caught the attention of his bosses.
Gregory Bovino, the El Centro Sector chief, told that not only is Fernandez doing his job for the Border Patrol but for the community the sector serves. Bovino said that Fernandez’s work exemplifies the efforts agents across the Border Patrol are making to bring criminal migrants to justice. But the way Fernandez does his job stands out, Bovino said, because of the service he is providing to protect residents.
“It resonates with the public because this is happening where they live,” Bovino said. “This happens where you live. So, they realize that and that these folks are actually preying on the communities or have the potential to prey on those communities.”
Fernandez’s first target was a migrant who was convicted of killing two people, had escaped from jail and also had gang ties. That person was captured, but a judge said that he could not be removed to his home country of Brazil because of the threats he faced there.
So he was released back into the United States. Now, Fernandez is on a mission to find that criminal migrant again, along with others who pose threats to Americans.
For Fernandez, the job is more than a job; it has become personal for a father who is seeking to protect his children. So when another criminal is taken off the streets and added to the #Shaned list, Fernandez has difficulty putting his feelings into words.
“It feels fantastic … because a lot of yourself goes into these investigations and you get vested on a personal level,” he said. “When you see all the hard work sometimes, it takes three, four, five months and you see all that pay off in the end, and you see all of the work was worthwhile, and you see that subject in (handcuffs) and arrested and finally paying the consequences for his actions, it’s an indescribable feeling.”
